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What to do when your dream vacation leaves you with the post-travel blues

Sarah Kloke wanted to see her father realize his romantic, near-impossible dream of climbing Everest. It’s something her dad, Bernie, had been wanting to do since his teen years. And so Kloke, 31, spent a year of carefully planning their venture.

Every dollar spent and morsel eaten felt connected to preparation for the trip. She spent hours scouring the Internet and making calls to procure a local guide and porter. She researched the ethics and risks of the climb. She ramped up her running regimen; her dad did stair climbs with bricks in his backpack.

Sarah Kloke and her dad, Bernie, climbed to Everest Base Camp in May 2016.

Rachel Phan was so excited to visit London she arranged a professional photo shoot with her boyfriend, Michael Eastman, to commemorate the experience. (Jimmy Cheng)

After a year of planning, and 10 days of exhaustive effort, the pair reached Nepal’s south base camp, an altitude of 5,364 metres, on May 14, 2016.

The one thing she didn’t plan for was coming back down. The “Everest bubble” burst a few months after returning home.

“Things haven’t been the same for me,” Kloke said. “I’ve never felt so much like myself as when I was on that mountain. I felt so focused on this achievement. And now it’s hard to remain focused here because I don’t have the same motivation or ambition,” said Kloke, a student counsellor.

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Kloke is no stranger to the rigours of travel: she has visited more than 60 countries, including Japan, where she climbed Mount Fuji. But Everest was different.

“It was so consuming because of the amount of information, and the investment we had in the planning,” Kloke said.

Since her return, Kloke has backpacked around Nicaragua and portaged in Algonquin Provincial Park. Both trips were enjoyable; neither came with the same emotional commitment, the same risk or the same climax. Kloke was highly aware Everest was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, especially for her 59-year-old father. Even a year later, someone brings up the trek every time they meet.

“There’s different motives and feelings when you travel. For me, Nepal was that all-consuming motivation and goal. Other countries serve their own unique purposes but I will not feel that feeling again.”

Kloke isn’t the only one who has experienced the “what now?” feeling of crossing off a bucket-list item or felt the post-vacation blues. Vacations are a break from everyday routine, loneliness or even drama that can feel even more harsh upon returning from a relaxing or thrilling time away.

When it comes to achieving a major travel goal, it’s important to unpack the experience and bring it back to real life, said clinical psychologist and avid traveller Dominique Morisano, clinical psychologist and professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, who studies goal theory.

People should “examine what about that adventure was inspiring to you, what about that adventure was exciting to you,” she said. If you can’t make those elements a part of your life at home, maybe your life needs to change, she said.

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When Morisano returned, as a teen, from an exchange in Russia, she brought home some tea to drink as a subtle reminder of her experiences abroad.

“You have to plan things to prepare for the inevitable letdown after a trip. It’s important to plan a day or two to reacclimatise, and then start looking toward the next thing, how to make adventure in your daily or weekly life.”

For Rachel Phan, visiting Europe this spring felt like falling in love. So much that she and her boyfriend, Michael Eastman, planned a professional photo shoot in front of Westminster Abbey and other famous landmarks.

Like a jilted lover, she spent her first weekend back in Toronto moping, tearful and antisocial.

“That feeling of being in love on your first trip — you want to bottle that feeling,” she said. “Being able to get away together and not dealing with responsibilities.”

The pair also visited her sister in Berlin, and had anticipated the trip for the year between booking the flights and finally seeing the city that Phan, a history buff with a love of Queen Elizabeth I and the Tudors, grew up fantasizing about.

“Here in Toronto there’s history, but you’re not going to turn a corner and see where someone really famous got beheaded,” said Phan, 28, who works at a non-profit.

The way she’s coping is by seeking out local history. Toronto does have a few historical walking tours, and Phan has been looking into trying one.

In the long run, there’s no downside to setting a goal, unless it’s objectively impossible to attain, says Gary Latham, professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, who studies the psychology of goals. Any letdown or inertia following goal attainment is usually momentary, even if the moment lasts weeks or months.

“The odds are high that, as a result of a very significant achievement, (travellers like Kloke and Pham) will come up with another one,” Latham says. Some of his MBA students report feeling a blue after completing their rigorous program, which dissipates after they find a sense of fulfillment and purpose in other realms, such as a new job or improved work-family balance.

And ultimately, goals help develop self-efficacy, or a person’s belief in their competence. They have a protective effect on setbacks later, so that if one trip is a disaster, all is not lost.

“Once you achieve a specific goal, it gives you a greater sense of self-efficacy, as in, ‘Wow, I am far more capable as an individual than I thought I was. I’ll set another goal, just watch me attain it.’”

As for Kloke, she has no desire to climb another mountain, though she’s planning a camping trip to Iceland later this year.

“I’m recognizing the loss. I miss that feeling, and I miss that mountain. But I’ll have that missing feeling forever, and I’m okay with that,” Kloke said. “I’m content with the longing I have, because it shows how impactful the trip was.”

Bouncing back

Tips on recovering from the post-travel blues from clinical psychologist Dominique Morisano.

Don’t forget to factor in jet lag. It can take weeks for a circadian rhythm to readjust.

Write in a journal during the trip to make the memories more likely to stick; write in a journal after returning to work through the emotions, positive and negative.

Include friends and family during your trip through social media or email so they can relate when you get home

Re-live the experience through food or drink from the country you just visited.

Find a way to incorporate adventure in your daily life, even in small, inexpensive ways.

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